Originally Posted by
Complex Emotions
I reread the Maternal Dominance Hypothesis essay. Sometimes it leaves me at a loss, like the whole sway thing is hopeless in my case. On the other hand even though I am an intense planner and have dealt with anxiety and OCD, the other half of me IS actually known for being crazy fun, spontaneous, improvisational and open minded like “Sloane”. There are times where I can totally role with life and "chill and find the magic and wonder in the middle of the chaos”. As for whatever hormonal balance is running through me, I can't very well do much to change that. I can only have compassion and respect for what I am and what is biologically possible for my body. I do trust that a circumstance exists where I could conceive a daughter. Sure, it may never actually happen, but it is and always has been biologically possible for my body. I will remember that and take comfort in that knowledge, no matter what sex my second child is.
I’ve been officially swaying for seven months now and yeah, it is clearly time to loosen up. I’ve already been easing my strictness with the low blood sugar timing, but I’m still keeping the principals of that in mind. In terms of my diet, I’ll slowly take in a little more salt while still staying relatively low protein, high carb in comparison to how I used to eat pre-sway. I'll take it meal by meal for now. I don’t know about all the almond milk I’m drinking for the calcium thing... We’ll see what happens. Who cares, right? I figure that probably isn’t a huge make or break it thing. I also take reasonable amounts of cal-mag, iodine, and folic supplements so I can keep that up with no stress. I never got that into the coffee, alcohol or fiber recommendations. They’re all kind of hard on my system, but I dabble with the first two when I feel like it. I do drink more diet coke than I used to just because I like it.
The exercise thing is a pleasurable fit. Before the sway I already did moderate to high intensity cardio five or so times a week for thirty minutes or so. For the sway I’ve increased the duration to an hour or more for seven days a week while lowering the intensity to lighter cardio or walking. I’ve enjoyed this and could keep doing things this way on autopilot indefinitely.
As for being a vegetarian, that’s easy too. I've wondered if that really could sway though. I mean, aren't whole cultures vegetarian with the same sex ratio as meat eating countries? This seems like correlation versus causation. Maybe the people who choose to be vegetarian in the UK or US tend to be the more compassionate, empathetic animal loving women who statistically have a more "pink-friendly" hormonal profile?
One attempt seems like a total no-brainer. I keep saying I’d do every four days, but mostly we’re just doing pull-out until it's the morning of ovulation day as predicted by the OPKs. It’s kind of stressful, but I think we can take it for now.
I recently remembered way back to my first foray with gender desire, back when I was ten and my mom was pregnant with her fourth baby. I had a secret deep wish that the baby would be a boy because my brother and I got on great whereas my sister and I struggled intensely with jealously. I didn’t feel like I could handle another sister and I prayed everyday the baby was a boy. We didn’t find out the gender until he was born, but I fell so in love with my new brother and so grateful that he was a he. So, in a weird way it helps to remember that once the gender thing DID go exactly how I’d hoped, and once I’d hoped so deeply for blue over pink. It's even got me thinking about the horrible possibility that if I do have a daughter, what if I struggle with jealousy with her?! I’ve heard that does happen with some mother and daughter relationships and it sounds excruciating! Jealousy has eaten up some of my relationships with women, but I’ve never had those problems with men. Also, many women on my side of the family have struggled with eating disorder but all of the my male relatives appear to have solid and comfortable lives. If I end up with two healthy sons, well I would mourn for the daughter I never had, but I know that would be a blessing. I’ll be so excited to see my son as a big brother either way.